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Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered by  Bereavement Black Borders


















                         ON  THE  BODY  O:F  THE  DUKE  OF  WELLINGTON
                                                LYING  IN  STATE.





                                                            I.
                                        THOU  art on earth !  not in thy hero's guise,
                                       But hovering, mi.dway 'twixt the earth and skiC's,
                                       An angel spirit ;  in thy rich fraught bier,
                                       Kept from  decay by England's heart-wrung tear.


                                                            II.
                                       Thou livest yet-Oh, happy be thy sleep !
                                       And angels o'er the.e sweetest vigils keep !
                                       There is no  death for thee-the great-tho brave ;
                                       Thy spirit lives-thy dust may seek tho grave.

                                                           III.
                                       Thou art alive-thine eagle eye may close,
                                       Thy voice for evC'r  sink in death's repose;
                                       What if thy life its earth-wove thread havr.  Hpun,
                                       Thy glory, new born,  hath its life begun.

                                                           IV.
                                       As thou art speeding to thy shrouded rest,
                                       Thine ORPHAN'D  FAME hath found a fostering breast;
                                       Nurs'd by fond  England---cradled by the age-
                                       Rear'd by old Time-and shrin'd in History's page.


                                                           v.
                                       Thou canst not die !  but living in THAT  child,
                                       The angels whisper, in their accents mild,
                                       "Flesh, kiss the earth-soar, Spirit, to the sky !
                                       Thy fame  is foster'd by Posterity ! "

                                                                       ROSE  ELLEN  TEMPLE.
                                 October,  1852.
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